The First Church of Robotics

Source: New York Times — Aug 9, 2010 “By allowing artificial intelligence to reshape our concept of personhood, we are leaving ourselves open to the flipside: we think of people more and more as computers, just as we think of computers as people,” says author and computer scientist Jeron Lanier. “The constant stream of stories … Read more

Excellent Perseid Meteor Shower Expected – Aug 11-13

Every August, just when many people go vacationing in the country where skies are dark, the best-known meteor shower — the Perseid meteor shower — makes its appearance. The “shooting stars” promise to deliver an excellent show this year to anyone with clear and dark skies away from urban and suburban lights. The best time … Read more

Whats wrong with Pascals Wager?

Blaise Pascal, philosopher, scientist, mathematician and probability theorist (1623-1662), came up with a now famous reason for being a believer. It goes something like this: If God exists, then the believers are quids in, they go to heaven and the non believers loose out – hence only believers win in this scenario. If God does … Read more

How to Find Science Based Medicine

What is truly scary these days is that some mainstream medics buy into a lot of unproven woo alternative medicine. When you seek medical care, would you really what to be given something that has never been proven to work? So how can you keep your finger on the pulse and check up on anything … Read more

Regeneration

Source: New York Times — Aug 6, 2010 Two research reports published Friday offer novel approaches to the age-old dream of regenerating the body from its own cells. By inactivating two genes that work to suppress tumors, a research group at Stanford University got mouse muscle cells to revert to a younger state, start dividing and … Read more